Question: Is China lying about their massive population in order to "game the system"?

With Evergrande's default last weekend due to over-investing in completely vacant and never-lived-in "ghost cities", it got me thinking...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/14/business/evergrande-china-property-ghost-towns-intl-hnk/index.html

Is China's population really 1.402 billion? Could they actually just be counting available residencies, not actual people living in them?

If so, then is any Nation's population truly accurate?

We know polls are complete bull. What about the entire worldwide censusing system as well?

What fraud could the Cabal take advantage of with an over-inflated population figure? Maybe things like relief packages for a town based on population, meaning that if 20% of people don't exist they can just pocket that money, right?

It also feeds into the depopulation narrative by making it look like we are growing out of proportion with supply...

So, what do you guys think? Are they lying about population? If so, then by a lot or a little?